January 13, 2015 03:45 PM UTC

Records Request Reveals Investigation of Pueblo GOP Chair For Election Document Theft

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• by: ProgressNow Colorado

(Nothing up her sleeve! Not sneaky enough – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

WEDNESDAY POLS UPDATE: The Denver Post's editorial board weighs in:

Chostner's letter says the "evidence would support filing a misdemeanor election offense," but he declined to do so. Why? Undermining election security is a serious matter, and DAs need to impress that upon everyone.

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POLS UPDATE: The Pueblo Chieftain's Peter Roper reports:

Becky Mizel, chairman of the Pueblo County Republican Party, received a stern letter from District Attorney Jeff Chostner last month that said video evidence showed she took confidential election records from a Nov. 18 county election canvass board meeting — a misdemeanor charge that Chostner said would not be filed against her because Mizel argued it was inadvertent.

Chostner's letter, dated Dec. 10, acknowledged that Mizel insisted the episode was an accident, but the letter clearly challenged that, citing video records of the meeting…

Chostner's letter said Ortiz provided the canvass board with a "direct recording election" report and an abstract report of results to review. Ortiz advised those at the meeting that those reports could not leave the room.

Chostner's letter said video showed Mizel later putting the documents in her satchel, attempting to leave by a different door than the rest of the people at the meeting, only to find that door locked.

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ProgressNow Colorado, the state's largest online progressive advocacy organization, today called on Pueblo Republican Party Chair Becky Mizel to publicly apologize and explain her apparent theft of a confidential election document. ProgressNow Colorado obtained video and documents in an Open Records Act request regarding elections procedures and meetings in Pueblo County.

According to video [1] and documents obtained from the Pueblo District Attorney and Clerk & Recorders offices, available from ProgressNow Colorado upon request, Mizel only narrowly avoided criminal charges related to the disappearance of a document from an election certification meeting on November 18, 2014. The document contained confidential information from ballots cast in person on voting machines.

"The kind of shenanigans we're learning about in Pueblo are shameful and unacceptable," said ProgressNow Colorado executive director Amy Runyon-Harms. "As an elected official representing the Republican Party, Mizel should be held to a higher standard. At the very least, Mizel is guilty of juvenile nonsense unworthy of any legitimate stakeholder in our elections. At worst? The Pueblo GOP is not above cheating to achieve their goals."

Records obtained by ProgressNow Colorado reveal that the document in question was discovered missing on November 18, during a meeting of the Pueblo canvass board. Pueblo GOP chair Mizel is not a member of the canvass board and was attending as an election "watcher." Despite a request by Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert Oritz that the document be returned, Mizel did not return the document until the next day–after it was revealed that a camera had captured Mizel taking it.

Pueblo District Attorney Jeff Chostner investigated the incident, and notified Mizel that she had been observed taking the document and returning it the next day. Chostner warned Mizel in a letter obtained by ProgressNow Colorado that her behavior risks criminal charges. [2]

"Mizel's misbehavior is part of a larger trend in Colorado, where extremists who don't like the election results or the voting process attempt to break the system: refusing to certify the vote, frivolous lawsuits, and now even stealing official documents to stall the vote of the people," said Runyon-Harms. "It's shameful and needs to stop."